Mitchell

Born in 1964, Katie Mitchell is well renowned for her hyper-naturalism along with her 'live cinema' technique to portray the ideals of feminism. Often adapting feminist texts, or taking marginalised female characters in male-centric plays, she will make sure that the characters portrayed feel 'real' and when more intense moments happen, and aided by the multimedia, the audience will feel uncomfortable or even horrified.

MAIN CHARACTERISTICS:

HYPER-NATURALISM

With Katie Mitchell, naturalism is key to showcasing these complex female characters. For working, she has 6 steps to naturalism for any character and actor she is working with:

1. Character Biography - Think of all the events that have occured in the character's life and how it affects what they do. For example: if someone was raised to be tidy, then they would neatly fold objects around them or possibly look to fidget with things to make it 'neat'.
2. Place - Think of how the space will affect how the character will act. For example: if someone is being confronted by an open door, they may constantly look at the open door in case anyone will see them.
3. Time - Look at the season, day and time of day and how it will affect how the character will act. For example: if it is a summer evening, the character may fidget and ,ove about if they are sitting due to the heat and swat away flies as they appear in summer.
4. Immediate Circumstances - Think about what has happened in the past 24 hours and what is happening around them to act a certain way. For example: If a character's house has just been flooded with water around up to their chin, they may shut their eyes tightly and try to imagine they are somewhere else.
5. Events - See how each event that takes place in a scene and how the character would react and change due to what has unfolded. For example: If a character is making a bomb, how are they affected by getting out the materials, then receiving a text on the phone, then someone new entering the scene.
6. Intentions - Think about what is the aim of the character to do or achieve in a scene. For example: If the character is trying to find out information, how will they approach and talk with another character.

LIVE CINEMA

One of Katie Mitchell's pioneering aspects of her theatre making was the use of 'Live Cinema'. This is the act of having cameras and microphones on the stage (Used typically in film making) recording the characters live on stage which would then be recorded and projected onto the stage for the audience to view. This way, the audience almost has a split perspective: The up-close 'film' caught by the camera and the 'performance' live on stage. The purpose of this technique is to capture up close slight reactions or the thoughts happening in the character's head. In Katie Mitchell's words, it is to "amplify the female experience."

Practically, this is achieved by having cameras set up across different points of the stage where they would be operated by technicians. You would also have people recording voice overs live and present on the stage; and sound effects, or live foley to be technical, again being recorded live on the stage. None of the technical aspect would be hidden, using a technique called 'exposing the method' where the audience is made apparent that this is a performance (or in this case a recording).

OTHER CHARACTERISTICS:

• Non-Naturalism - As well as the use of hyper-naturalism, Katie Mitchell also likes to use non-naturalistic techniques such as slow-motion or surreal sequences to interrupt the flow of scenes and highlight a specific event, or to get into the head of a specific character.
• Detailed Sets - To aid the detailed and highly realistic characters, Katie Mitchell places these characters in intricate, highly detailed sets. These sets are functional and if it includes a detail, such as a light switch, that lightswitch will work on the set.
• Feminist Focus - Katie Mitchell tends to adapt feminist literature or plays, with the most notable being the infamous Sarah Kane. THese brutal plays centre on the issues females face in a male-centric world and Katie Mitchell aims to bring light to these horrid injustices with her characters that you feel you could know or even see yourself in.